


passing fear

by PitchonthePitch



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Dark Past, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Gen, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), Self-Esteem Issues, full disclosure: I've never read the comics, i don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 10:12:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PitchonthePitch/pseuds/PitchonthePitch
Summary: The Scarecrow uses fear to intimidate his victims.  He gets a surprise when his latest victim doesn't seem all that intimidated by his tactics.





	passing fear

**Author's Note:**

> See the End Notes for trigger warnings

He looked annoyed. “You’re not afraid?”

In front of her, his face had morphed. The sad-looking scarecrow mask became the face of a demon. He looked like the stuff from her nightmares.

“No, I am,” she said.

“But you’re not screaming.”

As a child, when she had a really horrible nightmare, she heard her brother’s voice inside her head. “Rosalind, close your eyes!” Those were the words he’d say to her in real life, whenever something scary was about to come on the television. In the nightmare, she closed her eyes. When next she opened them, she was awake.

The first time she had sleep paralysis, she imagined the killer from her favorite horror movie was leaning over her while she lay in bed. She couldn’t move her head to look at him, but she could see his white mask out of the corner of her eye. She told herself the masked man was just her brother, trying to scare her. She fell back asleep and didn’t wake again until the morning.

Now, her brother was gone. But his voice was still the one she heard when she was scared. The Scarecrow sounded just like him.

“I’m sorry; did you want me to?” To her own ears, she sounded annoyed. “Will I hurt your ego if I don’t scream?”

He cocked his nightmare head at her. “Why aren’t you affected? I had to expose myself to the toxin for years before I could build up an immunity.”

“You’ve used it on yourself?” She wondered what she must look like to him. Was he seeing a demon, too? Were his nightmares made of the same stuff as hers? “Are the effects permanent?”

“Not necessarily. Not if you’re given the antidote in time.”

_If._ “I don’t suppose you’ll give me the antidote?”

“I don’t know. You seem to be functioning just fine without it. How are you functioning just fine?”

“I don’t know,” she echoed. “I have pretty bad anxiety. I guess I’m used to feeling scared. You actually look less scary to me right now than if I saw you as a normal person.” Normal people scared the hell out of her. She didn’t know how to talk to them. She certainly didn’t owe this guy an explanation, but she knew she had to cooperate if she was ever going to get that antidote. Besides, what were hostage-type situations like this one for, if not to force your captor into some sort of self-aggrandizing group therapy session?

“Then why do you want the antidote?” He looked at her like she was something perplexing. She knew the Scarecrow was famous for his fear-inducing tactics. He probably forgot there were greater motivators than fear.

She looked him in his flaming eyes. “When I look at my mother, I’d like to see her face. Not the face of a monster.”

He looked disappointed with her. “Shame. I thought maybe we were the same, you and I. But we’re not. You remind me more of the Bat than myself.”

If he had known how relieved those words would make her, she doubted he would’ve told her so. She’d always felt a strange kinship with the masked men that ran around Gotham. Good or evil, they were all outsiders. Just like her. But at least they knew where they stood with each other. The Scarecrow was a villain. The Batman was a hero. At least they knew who they were. She was a fighter with no cause. She was a mastermind with no plan. She was a freak with no mask to hide behind. Not a hero, not a villain, not quite a normal civilian. She was nobody.

But if she reminded the Scarecrow of the Batman, then maybe there was hope for her, after all. Maybe she could be somebody... Somebody worthy of being good.

He threw something her way. “There’s your antidote.”

She frowned at him. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“I believe that life is meaningless without fear. You don’t need the toxin. I can tell you’re being honest when you say you’re always scared.” His demon face was leering at her.

She shot the antidote into her wrist, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt it in her veins.

When she opened her eyes again, he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> Implied/referenced past-abuse. (Sort of. The main character has a dark past involving her brother. The text does not go into a lot of detail about what their relationship was like.)  
Mention of death.  
Mention of therapy.  
More trigger warnings can be found in the tags


End file.
